


The Old Lie

by draculard



Category: A Month in the Country (1987)
Genre: Ambiguous Character Death, Don't let the tags fool you this is soft (I think), Ghosts, M/M, Nightmares, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Stargazing, Trauma, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-24 01:50:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20350384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: He likes this view of the stars better from his loft, but he thinks he could learn to love it from the field.





	The Old Lie

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Wilfred Owen's WWI poem Dulce et Decorum Est:
> 
> If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood  
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,  
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud  
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—  
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest  
To children ardent for some desperate glory,  
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est  
Pro patria mori.
> 
> (Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori: It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country.)

They’re lying under the stars together like children, Tom thinks, with no blanket between them and the lumpy ground, and when he remarks on this aloud, Moon just laughs and nods, his arms pillowed under his head.

“Well, we _ were _ children once,” he says reasonably, as though that alone should put Tom’s English sensibilities to rest. He kicks his feet up and crosses them at the ankle. It was his idea that they should do this, of course; Tom has been content to sleep in his little loft each night alone, and it was only with the greatest reluctance (and the smallest smile) that he accepted Moon’s invitation to stargaze.

He likes the view somewhat better from his loft, he thinks. But he could learn to love it from the field.

“In Skomer Island, you know, you can see the Milky Way,” says Moon.

Tom has never even considered going to Skomer Island. He glances at Moon and then away again. In fact, he’s scarcely thought of travel at all since the war. He wants to say this, but his jaw seems wired shut, the way it often is around Moon, who hangs around the field like some odd shadow, always amicable, always strange.

“You can just see Gemini,” says Moon with no notice of Tom’s mood, extricating a hand from beneath his head to point at the stars. “There. See?”

Tom follows the finger, shifting himself closer to Moon, and nods. Up close like this, he can smell the dirt on Moon’s old clothes, mingled with the crisp scent of apples stolen from a farm nearby. It’s possible that Moon, in kind, can smell the paint on Tom’s hands from his restoration work. Or perhaps he only smells like the straw he sleeps on. 

He can feel the heat of Moon’s wiry arms through his sleeves, where the coarse cloth rubs against his skin. How strange that he should still feel heat after so many years in the cold. He tries to remember the last time he was this close to somebody and conjures up a memory of hauling bodies in the war, of the unreal, unacceptable feeling of touching someone who seems alive — who seems human — and finding them cold. 

He’s glad Moon isn’t cold. He hopes he feels warm, too. 

When he sleeps alone in the old stone kirk, sometimes Tom dreams of mustard gas flooding foxholes and shells shaking the ground, of white eyes bulging in a waxy, writhing face. Does Moon dream of the same? In all his days here, Tom has woken up screaming maybe three times, but he’s never heard so much as an early-morning groan from Moon’s tent in the field. 

Does he dream of the soldier he saved? Tom has never learned the details of that incident. He imagines a young man, taller than himself and aristocratically handsome (though of course there’s no rational reason to imagine him so) clinging to Moon in distress. And then he turns his head to look at Moon and the image dissolves entirely, leaving him with a wistful little smile on his lips.

It’s just his luck that Moon glances over and spots that smile before it can slip away. Quickly, Tom turns his attention back to the stars, but he can’t quite bring himself to force a frown.

It’s a long moment before Moon speaks again.

“Tom,” he says, “what is it every child asks another, at some point or another?”

The first few answers which come to Tom’s mind are, of course, related to schooling. He can think of nothing which would apply to both girls and boys, or to every social class and race. His own memories of childhood seem far away and muted.

His silence speaks for him.

“It’s this,” Moon tells him. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

Staring at the night sky, thinking of mustard gas and shells, Tom can only close his eyes and sigh.


End file.
